[Machine transcription]
Will you pray with me?
O God, let us hear when our shepherd shall call in accents persuasive and tender, that while there is time we may cast one and all and find him our mighty defender. Have mercy upon us, O Jesus. Amen.
Grace, mercy, and peace be upon you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Brothers and sisters, the text is from the gospel and also from the epistle reading. You may be seated.
There is a question that somebody in the crowd asked, and we don’t know who that somebody was, but the question that he asked hit the nail on the head. And the question that he asked is, “Are only a few to be saved?” The short answer is yes. Most people in this world… Most people in this country, most people in the state of Texas, and most people in this city will not be saved. Such a statement should lead us to be very humbled, causing us to realize, wow, what great grace God has given to me.
Now, Jesus does not give the short answer. He, Jesus, rather gives a longer answer, and the reason he does is because he knows what is within your bosom, just like you know what’s within your bosom. Because Jesus said, “Strive to enter through the narrow door.”
Now, it’s interesting. Your and my thing of narrow means really stringent. No, I don’t think you want to be stringently judged. I think you want to be judged forgiven. Amen. But the narrow door is to only be judged in the narrow door, Jesus Christ. For many will try to enter, but they don’t try to enter through Christ. They try to enter through some other means, and they will not enter. They will not be able.
Now, because of what Jesus said in the Gospel of John, both the 10th chapter, when he says he’s the door through which the sheep come through, and then in John 14, when he calls himself the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me, then it’s very clear that the narrow door that we are to strive to enter through is through Jesus and him alone.
Now that seems like so simplistic, and yet you and I live in a country where as long as you’re spiritual or religious or something other than confessing Christ Jesus, him crucified and him alone, then there are other ways through which one becomes into the kingdom of God. And that is not what Jesus said.
Our struggle to enter through the narrow door is with ourself. First and foremost, we are our worst enemy. We either beat ourselves up and say, oh, we’re unworthy, we’re unworthy, Lord. And so we feel like we have to put in our time and suffer a little so that God accepts us out of pity and sorrow. And that has nothing to do with the sacrifice of Christ, then does it?
Or we go the other way and say, well, God’s like a grandpa or an old Santa Claus. He’ll take us in, which is not what Jesus is either. Those are the two extremes that Satan loves to torment our flesh to think. And this world is full of preachers that proclaim that. That’s why the number that strive to enter through the narrow door are few. Few, not many.
Now, in the writer to the Hebrews, in that text, if you would pull out your bulletin, the first paragraph that talks, or first few paragraphs that talk of our discipline as God’s son, skip that and go to the paragraph that begins, “For you have not come to what may be touched.” Go to that paragraph.
For you have not come to what may be touched. Let’s take a look at that again. Because there are two mountains in the writer to the Hebrews. One is Mount Sinai and one is Mount Zion. And notice the difference. This paragraph is about Mount Sinai. This is about when Jesus was proclaimed, but proclaimed through the commandments.
“For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire, darkness, and gloom, and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words the hearers beg, that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given. If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned. Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, ‘I tremble with fear.'” Brothers and sisters, that’s the narrow door.
That’s the narrow door. And only one has gone through that narrow door. There’s only one who could stand upon that mountain and not be stoned like you or me. There was only one who was stoned for you because he came upon that mountain carrying you. And that is Christ Jesus and him alone. But that’s the mountain. Amen. And that’s the narrow door.
And it ought to cause us great humility and godly fear. Not worldly fear, but godly fear. That makes us say, “O Lord, what great grace you have given to me that you call me your son or your daughter.”
Now the next paragraph talks about not Mount Sinai, but about Mount Zion. Mount Zion is in Jerusalem where Christ was crucified. Listen to the complete opposite. But you, the writer reminds you, you did not come to Sinai. You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels, not in judgment, but in festal gathering, and to the assembly, not just any assembly, but the communion of saints. The assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven.
And you’ve come to God, the judge of all. And you’ve come to the spirits of the righteous made perfect. That’s you and those who have preceded you. And you’ve come to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant. And you’ve come to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
In a nutshell, it’s saying, there is only one blood that makes you righteous to touch the holy mountain, and it’s Christ. It’s not as if God is schizophrenic, and there’s a side of God that’s this way and a side of God that’s that way. That is not. This is the same God. But Mount Zion are those who have entered through the narrow door, through Christ.
They are the ones who do not stand at the door. “Lord, Lord, you preached in our streets. You ate dinner with us. Let us in.” Nobody in hell is unaware of Jesus. They all know him to be Lord. Nobody in hell is unaware of Jesus. They all know him to be Lord. They just don’t know him to be Lord by faith. They only know him as the judge.
We know him as the redeemer, the shepherd, the door, the way, the truth, and the life. In the next paragraph in that writer to the Hebrews, “See to it that you do not refuse him who is speaking.”
You’ve heard of the phrase, familiarity breeds contempt. It’s a phrase to describe that the more familiar we become with someone or something, the easier it is for which to take them for granted. That is why your mama and daddy said, “Did you not hear me? Did what I say go in one ear and out the other?” That’s also why husbands don’t always appreciate their wives until their wives are taken from them. That’s also why wives don’t always appreciate their husbands until their husbands are taken from them.
That’s why it’s hard to let go of children when they go off to school and when they’re gone. We don’t always appreciate what we have when it’s around us. God speaks to you, which is why it says, “See to it that you do not refuse him who is speaking.”
For Jesus said, when the master of the house has risen and shut the door and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door saying, “Lord, open to us,” he will say, “I don’t know where you come from,” because they didn’t enter through Christ.
When it says “strive to enter through the narrow door,” striving does not mean your moral effort. It does not mean you’ve got to clean yourself up first, then God accepts you. That’s malarkey. When have you cleaned yourself up enough to be acceptable to God? How long are you going to be cleaning in order to be clean? Because you can always find something else that’s dirty, can’t you? That’s not striving to enter the kingdom of God.
Yet some people think that. The Pharisees thought it. People today still think it: “God loves me and has blessed me and my family because I’m a pretty nice guy. I’m not like those folk.” No, that’s not striving. Striving is to repent. And repentance is not even a work you can do. It’s what God’s word does in you by the Holy Spirit. It’s what brings repentance to bear. Amen.
And to believe, and belief is not your work either. It’s God’s work within you through that word by the Holy Spirit that enables you to say, “Lord, I believe. Help thou my unbelief.” That’s what it means to strive to enter the narrow door. This is the life of the baptized, to endure the struggle.
Now Jesus finishes this with a very interesting statement. He talks about the feast, which is the marriage feast of the Lamb and his kingdom, which knows no end. And every Sunday we have a little picture of it every time the Lord’s Supper is celebrated. Jesus says the first will be last, and the last will be first.
What does the last look like? It looks like a broken God on the cross. That’s what the last looks like. Scorned and rejected by God himself, what? The Father, so that you don’t get rejected. That’s what the last looks like. And then when he rose from the dead, no longer is he last, is he? He’s now first. And all who are joined to him become first.
Now, if you want to see a more personal view of what the last looks like, look at yourself in the mirror when you go home. That’s what the last looks like. People like you. Broken sinners.
Now the first, what do they look like? They look like people we wish to be like. They look like their marriage is better than ours. They look like they have all the parenting skills that could be given. They look like the straight-A student. They look like the salesman above all salesmen and the businessman above all businessmen. They look like the greatest father and the most wonderful mother. But they don’t look unfit. And they’ll also be the ones outside the kingdom of heaven’s door saying, “Lord, Lord, you know, you know.” “I do not know where you come from.”
But when you look at yourself in the mirror, you don’t see that. Your flesh wants you to see that. But God, the Holy Spirit, keeps telling you, “No, it’s by grace, isn’t it?”
The last part of that Hebrews text, the very last paragraph, begins with this word. The very last of that paragraph. “Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken.” Amen.
And thus let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and fear, for our God is a consuming fire. What does acceptable worship with reverence and awe look like? It looks like you receiving God’s gifts and enduring. Receiving God’s gifts and enduring. Receiving God’s gifts and enduring.
That’s acceptable worship with reverence and awe because you know you stand as God’s child for no other reason than by the grace of Jesus Christ and his work in you to believe and to repent.
Receiving and enduring. The Pharisees and all who think that you can get acceptable to God in something that can be accomplished in this life woefully sad on that day.
You remember when Peter preached this amazing sermon on Pentecost? Thousands of people were converted. Before they were brought into the church, they asked this most poignant question. Peter had finished his sermon, and they are full of emotion, and they say, “Brothers, what shall we do?”
Did Peter say, “Well, now let’s get your life cleaned up, little boy and little girl.” Did he bring out a litany of chores to do? He said, “Repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins. And this promise is for you and for your children.” There was nothing about cleaning up your life.
John 6, Jesus had just finished feeding the people. And they were all about food, but they weren’t about the heavenly food that Christ himself brings himself. And so they said, “Well, tell us what we got to do to do the works of God so that we can do the works to inherit eternal life.”
And Jesus answered them, not with a litany of what to do, but with one statement. “Believe upon the one whom he has sent.” That is the work of God. And that work God did in you, which is why the writer to the Hebrews says, “Let’s be grateful for receiving, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken.”
So the life of the last, of which we are a part that shall be first, is a life of receiving and enduring, receiving and enduring, receiving and enduring.
In the name of Jesus, amen. The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds on Christ Jesus, the narrow door to life eternal. Amen.
